ShareThisThe place where three superstars united was supposed to be the big story this NBA season. The big story instead is the Big Easy, where one superstar was ready to leave.
The three-headed free-agent Miami monster of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh commenced the season at 6-4, while Chris Paul and the New Orleans Hornets are the league's last unbeaten at 8-0.
People now have one eye on the Heat and one eye on the curtain to see if general manager Pat Riley magically will appear and replace Erik Spoelstra as coach.
MIAMI VICE: BIG 3, PLUS WHO?
Spoelstra has contemplated switching things up in the starting lineup, at the other two positions obviously, but not everyone is on board with a potential change.
"I'm a bench player," said 13-year veteran Zydrunas Ilgauskas of replacing Joel Anthony at center. "I feel more comfortable coming off the bench, to be honest with you."
Bosh prefers playing power forward to playing center.
"It's always fun sometimes to get a break from the wrestling match," Bosh said. "Big Z is more of a shooter who looks for his offense more. Joel is more of an energy guy. Getting used to each other's dynamic is something we're going to have to build as the season goes along to get our chemistry right. Coach can't help us with everything all the time."
Even players who are getting minutes aren't content. "For myself, 44 minutes is too much," James said after the second loss to Boston. "I think Coach Spo knows that. Forty minutes for D-Wade is too much. We have to have as much energy as we can to finish games out."
IS THE SKY FALLING IN MIAMI?
Though the Heat started out 1-4 against teams with winning records, James vows, "It's no time to panic. It's nine games into the season. It's not like the NFL, where you can go the first quarter of the season and be 0-4 or 1-5 and be looking down the barrel of a gun. We just need to work through what's going on and continue to get better."
Asked if the sky was falling in Miami, Bosh said: "No. The sky never falls. It's too pretty out here."
It's certainly not that pretty at 6-4 and in third place, however.
As for Paul, he was the one who made a toast at Carmelo Anthony's wedding on July 11 about leaving the Hornets and joining Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire with the New York Knicks.
"Everybody was having fun," Anthony told Fanhouse.com of the incident. "The Miami Heat thing was the hot topic at that point in time. There were a lot of guys, a lot of players there, just laughing and joking about it. It is what it is ... It wasn't set up. It wasn't staged or anything like that. It was just everybody was having a good time laughing and joking."
NO SPIKE LEE JOINT
If Anthony does get traded to the Knicks, it won't be because of moviemaker Spike Lee. Lee supposedly told Anthony he should "do the right thing" and go to New York. Anthony said that never happened and refuted a recent New York Post report that Anthony has had several conversations with Lee about joining the team.
"Never. Inaccurate. False," Anthony said.
By the way, the Knicks visit Denver on Tuesday and the Nuggets play at New York on Dec. 12. "I expect that to be a zoo," Anthony said of media coverage in New York.
PAUL PIERCE'S 'GANGSTER' TWEET
Following Thursday night's 112-107 victory at Miami, Boston's Paul Pierce tweeted: "It's been a pleasure to bring my talents to south beach now on to Memphis."
The message was in reference to what James posted July 8 that he would be "taking my talents to South Beach" to sign with Miami.
Heat forward Udonis Haslem on Pierce's tweet; "Paul who? Man, ain't nobody paying them dudes no attention, man. You know what studio gangster is? Look up that, look up the definition of studio gangster. I'm here to play basketball. First of all, I don't tweet. So I wouldn't know what he tweeted if you guys didn't tell me."
Urban Dictionary has a half dozen definitions of Studio Gangster, one of which is: "A person that talks about the hood, but would be scared if they went to the hood."
INDIANA'S INCREDIBLE "PACE"
The Indiana Pacers scored 54 points in the third quarter of a 144-113 victory against Denver and hit their first 20 shots in the period.
It was the highest total for any quarter in franchise history, tied for second-most points in a third quarter in NBA history and tied for fourth-most points in any quarter in league history.
Mike Dunleavy scored 24 points in the third quarter (7 for 7 from the field, which included 5 for 5 on 3-pointers). Fellow Duke product Josh McRoberts missed from long distance from the left side with 1.9 seconds left in the quarter, ruining Indiana's shot at quarter perfection.
"Josh really let us down," Dunleavy deadpanned. "You have to finish things off the right way."
(Contact John Rohde at jrohde(at)opubco.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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